Sports Inclusion Program

The Sports Inclusion Program at the Canadian Centre for Gender & Sexual Diversity aims to challenge homophobia and transphobia in athletics – to make sports a more accepting and inclusive pastime for all athletes, regardless of sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

We will work with amateur and recreational sports leagues, gym classes, and school and community groups (etc) all around Ontario to increase awareness and understanding about LGBTQ+ issues in sports. We believe everybody is affected by hetero- and cis-sexism in athletics, not only queer and trans people – so we hope to collaborate with sportspeople and trainers throughout the province to create action plans on how to combat ignorance, reduce bigotry, and improve the atmosphere of inclusiveness and acceptance in athletics.

Towards these goals, we offer workshops for interested and eligible groups (that is, anybody involved in some type of sport, not at the professional or collegiate level). More information on these can be found below. These trainings are completely free of charge (we are fortunately funded by a grant), and we are willing to travel to where you are to facilitate them, in either English or French.

We would like to know where you are located, how many participants will attend the workshop, and which of the two trainings you prefer. We are looking forward to your emails and phone calls and are excited to work with you in the future!

Want to learn more or book a workshop?

Awareness Workshop: LGBTQ+ Inclusion in Sports (1-2 hours)

This workshop starts by introducing LGBTQ+ identities and covers key terms and basic terminology in order to build a foundation for further knowledge. Then we move into how experiences of queer people in sports often differ from straight/cisgender athletes, enlightening participants about these varying obstacles and issues related to LGBTQ+ inclusion in sports, that most are not aware of. We discuss how we can improve acceptance and strive to be more welcoming athletic individuals and organizations, for queer athletes but also all sportspeople. We discuss as a group how to effect these changes and increase inclusivity in sports, so we have more knowledge and strategies to boost participation and success. Naturally, we also feature a lengthy Q&A session.

This workshop is designed for sports facilities, teams, and associations but can be easily adapt for high schools.

As a leader in anti-discrimination work, CCGSD runs programming all over Canada and the United States. Because of our hundreds of volunteers, we are able to reach over 250,000 people annually. We are also a proud leader in the International Day of Pink (DayOfPink.org).
Tel: 613-400-1875Email: info@ccgsd-ccdgs.org